Forty-five young people from Mangetti Dune and surrounding villages have turned out in large numbers to attend a leadership, policy and governance training organised by Indigenous Communities for Self-Determination.
Indigenous Communities for Self-Determination was founded in June 2025.
The five-day training aims to empower young people by amplifying the voices of young Indigenous leaders in decision-making and policy engagement.
It also seeks to empower the youth with knowledge and skills to participate meaningfully in policy processes and advocate for their rights and the rights of their communities.
The founder and organiser, Simson Kapembe, stated that empowering young Indigenous people with leadership and governance skills is important in ensuring that their voices are represented in decisions that affect their communities.
“The main purpose and importance of this training is to bring young people together, allowing them to raise issues and work towards finding solutions to the challenges they face. This will empower indigenous communities to stand up for themselves and address the injustices affecting their youth. It is also important to ensure that indigenous knowledge, skills and culture do not disappear but are preserved for generations to come.”
He also added the youth can generate an income.
"How can youth preserve resources, and how can they create products like crafts? How can they use the traditional food and sell it and also earn income out of it?"
The NBC news team also spoke to the participants about their experiences on the training.
“I joined this training to learn more about my rights. I am glad to be part of this training, where I have met different people with different views and opinions, and I have learned a lot from them. I now understand some of the policies, and it is time for us as youth to stand up for ourselves,” said Paulus Risto.
“I enjoyed the training because it taught me things that I did not know before. Now we have ideas on how to tackle issues in our communities. I would like this training to take place again so that it can also give opportunities to those who are not here this time. The only challenge experienced was transportation, which affected especially participants from other villages,” added Naomi Jason.